ABSTRACT
The growth, decline, and resurgence of the US biodiesel industry have been quite remarkable. Biodiesel became a very important biofuel when the price of rened vegetable oil was relatively inexpensive and was competitive with the price of commercial diesel fuel per unit volume. The US government also provided initial subsidy on the oil feedstock. For the rst few years when biodiesel was quite popular, beginning in 2005, several commercial production facilities emerged, bringing the production to record highs each year. Figure 5.1 shows the growth of the biodiesel industry in recent years in the United States (National Biodiesel Board [NBB], 2012a). The maximum production was rst achieved in 2008 with about 700 million gallons of biodiesel produced (2650 million liters) and that was when the price of the feedstock slowly became very expensive and the subsidy for the oil feedstock for biodiesel in the United States was removed. In Texas alone, nearly 30 biodiesel plants were established in 2008. When the price of vegetable oil signicantly exceeded the price of diesel, some of these plants started to shift to other cheaper feedstocks such as chicken fat or other animal fats, including waste oil from fast-food chains. Still, the price of chicken fat and other
alternatives continued to increase, resulting in a substantial drop in production and the number of biodiesel plants that have closed down until 2010. There was, however, a rebound of the biodiesel industry as reported by NBB for the year 2011, with a record production of more than 1100 million gallons (4164 million liters). This is a signicant milestone of producing more than 1 billion gallons of biodiesel (3.785 billion liters) in a given year. The primary reason for the increase in production is the implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) by the US government.
